Undergraduate - UnitATS2628 - Power and poverty: International development in a globalised world

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Sustainability Environment and Society
Offered	Clayton Second semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Dr Bruce Missingham

Synopsis

This unit focuses on the interrelated nature of power, poverty and development in the contemporary world. It provides students with the ability to critically examine geographical polarities of power and wealth generated by global processes of development for different groups of people in the world. Students engage with the main concepts, and definitions of international development.

The following questions are explored:

What are key disparities that pose serious concerns for global wellbeing?
How are international differences generated or reinforced by uneven global development?
How might we approach alternative strategies for tackling current patterns of global inequality?

Outcomes

Students successfully completing this unit will be able to:

Understand and explain how international development differences have come about;
Interpret critically the competing explanations exist for global disparities;
Assess critically the institutional and other structures that exacerbate and reinforce uneven international development;
Develop normative understandings about how patterns of global inequality can be transformed toward socially just and sustainable outcomes;
Demonstrate sound written and verbal expression, involving the critical analysis of text, graphs, tables, maps, film and other data. Students will meet the objectives of the unit by:

a. Actively participating in tutorials;

b. Demonstrating knowledge of key concepts of international development in discussions and written work;

c. Preparing and submitting an essay that adheres to essay guidelines, is clearly structured, and which shows a well argued and balanced treatment of the material;

d. Demonstrating the complexities of uneven international development issues and theory in the exam.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 70%
Exam: 30%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.